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CMLL held a press conference to announce the teams for this year’s En Busca de un Idolo tournament. (I’ve posted this press conference here.) All matches will air on Terra, and possibly on TV. CMLL didn’t mention a specific TV deal this time.

The separate group Leaders and Trainers seem to be combined into one roll. Negro Casas and Virus will each take care of a team, as they did last year. The teams were determined by picking colored ping pong balls out of hat. Naturally, the four people with black ping pong balls ended up with Casas and the ones with the balls went with Virus.

Team Virus
Guerrero Negro Jr.
Hechicero
Star Jr.
Super Halcon Jr

Team Casas
Barbaro Cavernario
Cachorro
Dragon Lee
Soberano Jr.

Casas has a very young quartet.

JCR said everyone will fight everyone. In past years, that’s meant the entire group faced off each against each other the first three weeks. It sounded like he said this time all eight guys will have matches against each other in the first round, which would add another month to this tournament, but I may have misunderstood. Otherwise, the format appears to have stayed the same from last year: lightning matches on Tuesday and Friday, with judging, decisions and public voting (via enbuscadeunidolo.com) making up the points. They haven’t updated the website yet, so they may have made other quiet changes we won’t know about until they post the rules.

The judges will be Tirantes, Shocker, Mr. Niebla and a fourth judge which will change for every match and will not be known until the match happens. (That sounds to me like they’ll just be grabbing whoever will be free on those days, rather than pulling someone from all Tuesday Guadalajara shows until June.) Tony Salazar will be a consultant for both teams, maybe replacing Jose Luis Feliciano in the occasional role of overseer of this tournament, but appearing in far more skits.

Not a lot more announced here. They announced that the Arena Coliseo Anniversary show will be on 04/06 and the Arena Mexico announcement will be on 04/27.

Nothing’s been announced, but Maximo/Escorpion is the feud they’ve been running on Sundays. Last year’s Arena Mexico Anniversary show appeared to have a plan of Mr. Aguila versus Shocker, only for Shocker to get casted on La Isla instead. They did the hair match when he came back, and replaced it in April with Rey Cometa and Namajague. There doesn’t seem like any thing specifically set up for that spot this year, but we might start seeing something this Friday.

Like this:

Maria del Angel passed away yesterday. She suffered a stroke on Sunday, while at a show in Arena Jalisco in Guadalajara where she was to be honored. Maria del Angel, usually a ruda, was part of the large wave of luchadoras in the 80s when the ban on women’s wrestling in Mexico City was lifted. Maria doesn’t appear to be one of the bigger stars of that group of women – I can’t find an apuesta match for her, she got a few title matches but never won them – but the women who broke that barrier were treated as stars for a time. Maria worked in both UWA and CMLL; I believe the Mexican luchadors for a while were booked through the leader of the women’s group, instead of directly by the promotions (similar to what was done in the US), so it was whoever the group of women were working with that moment. Maria was married to Bestia Salvaje, who passed away in 2008.

The Invasors helping Volador get a win makes no sense if you think about it for two seconds. CMLL explains this Invasor aggression by saying “it appears the Invasors are regrouping to gain ground.” They have no ground to lose, guess they might as well as trying gain some. There’s a lack of actual regrouping, as you’ll see in the lineup. I like also how that CMLL written article comes up with a quote where Niebla Roja says he has no idea why this feud is happening. That’s compelling.

The eight for the tournament seem good enough, if not exactly what I wanted. Hechicero made it, so fun times ahead. Having both Cavernario & Soberano sets up an invalidation of Gran Alterantiva, but they haven’t done much with that as it is. I think this is a big deal for Star Jr., who doesn’t seem set up to get a lot of chances in CMLL but has a great breakout chance in this tournament. I really don’t want to see Guerrero Negro Jr. doing pointless Canadian Destroyers, but I guess they won’t be in the openers now. CMLL may think they’re helping Dragon Lee by putting him in this tournament, but it probably won’t end well for him.

Free win for Niebla & Casas! Olimpico versus Gran Guerrero is a battle for the ages, but the Invasors seem outgunned here. Stigma vs Zavala should be fun, and it looks like Asturiano versus Espiritu Maligno is an actual feud. HECHICERO.

Cuatrero & Sanson stick around here. Fuego en el Ring had a brief interview with them, where they mention they’re being taught mostly by Universo 2000. They are doing the Leo/Camorra hair match after all. It seems like doom for Camorra, but Leo is 0-1 in hair matches. Comandante is back from Japan.

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Shocker lost his hair for the first time in the main event of Homenaje a Dos Leyendas. Rush got the big win and said he wanted to finish things with Negro Casas next. Marcela defeated Dalys in a women’s hair match where Dalys was said to take quite a beating. Dalys would like a title shot anyway. Neither of those two outcomes are that surprising; the biggest upset was CMLL’s March show apparently outdrawing AAA’s March show. Atlantis continued his domination in the annual incredible pairs tournament, winning for the fourth time in five years, this time with Euforia. Maximo & Rey Escorpion fought with each other instead of Atlantis’ team and seem likely to have a hair match this summer. Cien Caras was honored (which appeared to be the favorite part for long time fans), and his two soon to be debuting sons were introduced. This show was the first CMLL Friday night show not to air at all since August 30th. CMLL and Terra spent the week avoiding answering questions about the status of the broadcast all week, until CMLL finally off hand mentioned on Facebook the show wasn’t airing about 60 minutes before bell time. This upcoming Friday’s show is back on the Terra website, so it appears it was a one time plan to not give away the major show for free and force everyone to come to the arena to see the show, only no one knew this until much too late to actually go to the show.

– La Parka won his fifth Rey de Reyes tournament in the main event of the show the same name. Steve Pain lost his hair in the dome cage match and the two champions who showed up (Daga and tag champs Angelico & Jack Evans) kept their titles in four way matches. The show was notable for who didn’t show: Elegido (????), Juvi (foot injury), and Blue Demon (maybe trying to get US residency.) Demon was scheduled to defend the Latin America championship, and almost definitely keep the Latin American championship, but challenger Chessman defeated Villano IV instead with the idea of doing Chessman/Demon some other day. Attendance seemed down from the year before, which was blamed on the cloudy skies. The plan for making this an iPPV, never officially announced, did not happen.

– Mistico La Nueva Era oddly didn’t appear as billed in the scheduled main event the Friday before Dos Leyendas. Sin Cara claimed his replacement was pulled for being drunk, Mistico claimed he doesn’t like to drink, the listing of him on the show was an internet typo and wasn’t at the show at all. It didn’t appear to be an internet typo at all, but maybe it Mistico actually wasn’t scheduled since Volador replaced him to kick off the latest Sombra/Volador feud.

– The AAA/El Rey show will start taping in August to air in September…or that’s just the current plan, according to the Wrestling Observer.

– Chilanga Mask’s first anniversary show had a bloody main event of Aero Boy, DJ Hyde, Masada and Kaientai in a death match. Aeroboy won, and was invited to the CZW tournament of death. Like with Rey de Reyes, important people didn’t make it – the Young Bucks were scheduled for a three way tag but missed the show for unclear reasons. CMLL’s Rey Cometa, also supposed to be in that tag match, ended up booked in Arizona instead, and was replaced by Mascara Dorada as part of two special singles matches.

Sin Cara continues to be weird and not to wrestle much. At least one those should change about a month from now, beginning with shows in late April and early March. Shows in that timeline Sin Cara previously dismissed as fake are now being promoted by the same Sin Cara as real. (It appeared to be a WWE no-compete issue.)

Oficial AK47 lost his hair to Tony Rivera in IWRG’s annual loser advance cage match show Guerra de Golfo. The rudos had been trying to cost Black Terry the match but were foiled and were forced to face each other instead. Skayde, who had been wrestling here with his mask, wrestled the match unmasked.

Super Nova won a title in Naucalpan.

Stuka won a title in Guadalajara

Mephisto kept his title in a La Mascara in a battle of campanas.

Estrellita keep her title in Guadalajara, the start of a very bad week for Dalys.